


So Close to the Sea

by rsadelle



Category: Brandy (You're a Fine Girl) - Looking Glass (Song)
Genre: CIRCLE OF LIFE, Elemental Magic, F/M, Witches
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-09
Updated: 2020-10-09
Packaged: 2021-03-08 02:08:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,105
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26917882
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rsadelle/pseuds/rsadelle
Summary: It is the first summer Brandy holds the land on her own that the sailor looks up into her eyes and smiles, and she knows that he is not just another one of the many who pass through the port.
Relationships: Brandy/The Man That Brandy Loved
Comments: 2
Kudos: 6





	So Close to the Sea

When she is a girl, nearly to full womanhood, Brandy follows the tug of the land and leaves her home. She crosses most of the island, surefooted and safe, through the jungle. She arrives at a house set apart on the hill above the western port. The door opens upon a woman.

"I was led here," Brandy says. "Can you do what I can do?" She holds out a cupped hand, and the island leaps into it.

The woman steps back, opening the door wider. "Come in," she says. "We will hold the land together for a time."

It is the first summer Brandy holds the land on her own that the sailor looks up into her eyes and smiles, and she knows that he is not just another one of the many who pass through the port.

She listens to his stories, brings whiskey and wine to their table. She pockets the coins the men leave her, weaves through tables and sailors with practiced ease.

The sailor is there to the end. Brandy nods to the barman, crosses the floor. She holds out her hand. "Would you share my bed tonight?"

The man takes her hand, brushes his lips across the back of it before he stands, does not let go of it all along the steep path up the hill to Brandy's home and her bed.

In the morning, there is no need for them to wake at dawn as they have not slept. Brandy gathers a robe around her, sees the man she loves to the door. He lingers for long enough to kiss her one last time, to say, "We will return."

Brandy cups his cheek, beard against her palm. "I will be here."

The man Brandy loves returns.

He brings her a single northern grown orange with bright skin. They share it in the middle of the night in her bed, licking juice off each other's fingers and a perfect tart sweetness out of each other's mouths.

He brings her a length of fine lace. She drapes it across her stomach as they lie in bed, until he sets it carefully away to put himself there instead. After he has gone again, Brandy sews the lace to the bottom of her curtains.

He brings her a dress of finest cotton, dyed a vibrant green. He tells her it is to match the green of the jungle that she holds.

He brings her a supple leather bag. They fill it with bread and cheese, fruits of the island, fish of the sea. Brandy takes the man she loves into the jungle.

"I have heard the jungle here is dangerous," he says.

"It is," Brandy answers, "but not for me." She takes him to a waterfall that feeds into a pool bordered by flat rocks and bright flowers.

"It is strange," he says as they feed each other bits of the food they've brought along, "that a land witch would eat fish from the sea."

"It is different here," Brandy says. "The island is so close to the sea that it is, in only a small way, part of the land."

He feeds her a bit of bread with cheese in silence, then speaks again. "I could not give up the sea," he says. "Even to live on an island would not be the same."

"I know," she says. "I could not leave the island, though the sea is part of it."

"I know," he says.

"And yet," Brandy says, holding a piece of juicy jungle fruit to his lips, "here there is a space for the two to meet."

He brings her a locket. He tells her of the silversmith he bought it from in the north of Spain, of the smith's working, of his choice of a locket on a braided chain over all else. It has his name on one side, hers on the other. When she opens it, there is water on one side, earth on the other, held in by silver and glass, close but never truly mixing. The water is from his beloved sea and the earth, she can feel, is from her island.

The man Brandy loves does not return. He does not return, and he does not return.

One night, after leaving the closed bar, the quieting port, Brandy follows a pull and turns not up toward her home but down toward the shore.

A woman walks out of the sea. Brandy holds out a cupped hand, and the woman drops something into it.

It is a pocket watch. Gold. Her name on one side. The name of the man she loves on the other. When she opens it, she finds a glass compartment on the inside of the cover holding sea and earth with a thin wall of gold between them.

The sea witch embraces her. "We too feel sorrow."

"Thank you, sister," Brandy says.

The sea witch walks into the waves.

Brandy stands on the shore, pocket watch in one hand, locket clasped in the other. She weeps, letting the salt water of her tears join the salt water of the sea that now forever holds the man she loves.

Brandy wears mourning for a year and a day, and styles herself a widow thereafter.

The locket hangs from her neck, the watch from her hearth. She brushes her fingers over the watch before she leaves the house, before she goes to bed. She's sure to touch it on the edges, not willing to risk wearing down their names engraved on it.

It is nearly three years before she hears the song.

"Brandy," one of the sailors she serves whiskey and wine cries out in delight. "Like the girl in the song!"

He sings it for her, his fellows joining him. It is the story of Brandy and the man she loves, of his love of the sea, of her love of him, altered just enough to fit the form of the song.

It is, she thinks, a fitting tribute to him. It is, she thinks, a fitting legacy for them both.

She forgets: what is air to earth? What is a song to the island?

Brandy follows the tug of the land and opens her door one morning. There is a girl, nearly to full womanhood, outside it.

"I heard a song about you," the girl says, "on the other side of the island. I came to see if you can do what I can do." She holds out a cupped hand, and the island leaps into it.

"Come in," Brandy says. "We will hold the land together for a time."


End file.
